On the highest travel week of the year, the Chinese authorities have placed a travel ban on over 35 million individuals, nearly the entire population of Canada.
Chinese authorities have placed a country-wide travel caution, and a city-wide travel restriction on Wuhan, a centralized city in China that has 11 million inhabitants (NYC has roughly 20 million residents, for reference). Coincidentally, this week is the turn of the Lunar New Year, which is the peak annual travel time for individuals in China. This restriction has devastated people that need to travel to see their families for the celebration, but the government and CDC have larger concerns than just minor familial inconveniences.
This is all due to the Coronavirus outbreak that has caused 26 deaths since the first reported case unraveled just under one month ago. There are roughly 300 diagnosed individuals in China at the moment, and as the virus spreads from coast to coast, the rest of the world is taking notice.
Although there has been no formally instituted cause for alarm, Chinese officials are urging other countries that receive direct international flights from Wuhan to follow their model of border security. The American and Canadian CDC have released statements regarding their awareness and plan of action for dealing with this mysterious sickness, but that hasn't stopped the illness from showing up on American soil.
There is little to no American cause for alarm at the moment, but it has been confirmed that one case of the Coronavirus has been identified in Washington State. The infected patient is being quarantined and treated right now, and no further cases have been identified in the United States.
However, the virus has been detected in Nepal, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. It has been confirmed that all of these cases are being contained, and there is no reason to be concerned.
This Coronavirus is actually a member of a family of viruses that have notoriously affected large groups of people in the past. SARS was the first Coronavirus to gain national attention, and medical authorities have confirmed that the current Coronavirus is not nearly as deadly.
The only concern that scientists have is that they don't know how the virus is spreading or what the incubation period is. In theory, there could be hundreds (possibly thousands) of dormant cases of the Coronavirus that haven't shown themselves yet.
But seriously, there is no reason to be anxious about the likelihood of you contracting this virus.